Website Writing Guide

Web writing and presentation style

Making content accessible

Writers and editors should write and present information so people with a disability can use the website. Organisations have a legal imperative and moral obligation to abide by these guidelines.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the acknowledged standard-bearer for online accessibility. See the website http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#meaning. Writers and editors should be familiar with the Accessibility guidelines.

Strive for clear and accurate headings and link descriptions. Review every heading, outline and menu to see if the crucial words mean exactly what is intended. Use more common words if they would convey the same meaning.

State the topic of the sentence or paragraph at the beginning of the sentence or paragraph.

Limit each paragraph to one main idea.

Make link phrases brief yet meaningful enough so they make sense when read out of context, alone or as part of a series of links.

Use images, illustrations, video, audio, or symbols to clarify meaning.

“Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use the Web. More specifically, Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web.” http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/accessibility.php

Disabilities dealt with by the World Wide Web Consortium include:

visual disabilities

hearing impairments

physical disabilities

speech disabilities

cognitive and neurological disabilities

multiple disabilities

aging-related conditions.

“People with disabilities experience text in many different ways. For some the experience is visual; for some it is auditory; for some it is tactile; for still others it

is both visual and auditory. Some users experience great difficulty in recognizing written words yet understand extremely complex and sophisticated documents when the text is read aloud, or when key processes and ideas are illustrated visually or interpreted as sign language.

For some users, it is difficult to infer the meaning of a word or phrase from context, especially when the word or phrase is used in an unusual way or has been given a specialized meaning; for these users the ability to read and understand may depend on the availability of specific definitions or the expanded forms of acronyms or abbreviations.

User agents, including speech-enabled as well as graphical applications, may be unable to present text correctly unless the language and direction of the text are identified; while these may be minor problems for most users, they can be enormous barriers for users with disabilities. In cases where meaning cannot be determined without pronunciation information (for example, certain Japanese Kanji characters), pronunciation information must be available as well.”